1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermal activation printer in which a heat-sensitive adhesive layer of a sheet material is heated to generate an adhesion force after temporarily stocking a sheet material on which printing has been performed.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a label used by being stuck to goods, there is known a label including a sheet-like base having one surface provided with a printing layer and another surface provided with a heat-sensitive adhesive layer.
The printer for printing the label having the heat-sensitive adhesive layer as described above generally includes a sheet supplying device for supplying the sheet material, a printing device for printing various information on a printing layer of the sheet material supplied from the sheet supplying device, a cutting device for cutting the sheet material on which printing has been performed by the printing device, and a thermal activation device in which the heat-sensitive adhesive layer of the sheet material is heated to generate an adhesion force.
For a related art printer including the thermal activation device, there is disclosed a structure in which an introduction device for introducing a sheet material while bending the sheet material is disposed between a cutting device and a thermal activation device (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
Further, for a structure for temporarily stocking the sheet material, on which the printing has been performed, in the apparatus, there is disclosed a related art printer having a space for stocking the sheet material, on which the printing has been performed, by suspending the sheet material by its own weight (see, for example, Patent Document 2).    [Patent Document 1] JP 2003-316265 A    [Patent Document 2] JP 2001-261228 A
However, the temporary stock portion for a sheet material as disclosed in Patent Document 1 or 2 adopts a method in which, until predetermined processes such as printing and sheet cutting end, the sheet material on which the printing has been performed is bent in a U shape or a bellows shape in a predetermined space, or a method in which the sheet material on which the printing has been performed is suspended in the predetermined space. Accordingly, it is necessary to ensure a relatively large space for stocking the sheet material. Therefore, there is a problem of inviting increase in size of the apparatus as a whole. Thus, it is impossible to apply the temporary stock portions as disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 to small mobile printers which can easily be carried by one hand.